In which there is a dance, but very little dancing. Everyone is scared of Wendy, everyone loves Cartman, Stan is very much gay, Kyle is very much not gay, and Kenny very much wishes he were gay. Het, slash, and wannabe slash.

I confess, I only wrote
this story so that I could use the title. And this is a Stan/Kyle and
Cartman/Wendy fic. What can I say, I like the pairings. It was going
to be a one shot, but when I got up to 25 pages and wasn't done I
said to myself, better break it up into chunks. So it'll be four
chapters long.

--

--

--

During the middle of sixth
grade, every single one of Wendy's girl friends stopping hanging
out with her. They didn't do it for a spiteful, stupid reason,
however. They did it for their own safety.

Because in sixth grade,
Wendy became Eric Cartman's best friend.

Now, if anyone had told
Wendy in fourth grade that in two years Cartman would be her closest
friend, she would laughed herself into a coma. Cartman? The world's
most spiteful, twisted human being? But it was true. They were
best friends. And though he still had Kyle, Stan, and Kenny, he
steadfastly refused to admit they were his friends. She was the only
person he would call that in public.

It had happened in drama
class. Wendy was appointed stage manager, and Cartman became the
curtain boy. This was something he complained about, very loudly,
interrupting rehearsals, so she argued back just as loudly, and they
both ended up in many detentions together. When the night of the play
rolled around, their Antony fell off the stage, and their Cleopatra
freaked out when they brought out the snake for the final act. If it
hadn't been for Cartman's quick curtain pulling abilities, the
play would have been a complete ruin.

Feeling strangely
grateful, Wendy had started spending more time with him. She found he
was surprisingly easy to get along with, once one stopped being
offended by the things he said and the things he did. He was actually
a rather amusing person, really. He did impressions that kept her in
stitches, and he snarked like a pro.

The older they got, the
better friends they became. They'd go down to the mall and not do
anything all day, and she would still enjoy herself. Cartman would
hover over the donation cans they kept at ever register, holding onto
a twenty, not taking his fingers off of it, his face screwed up as if
in deep consideration as he said, "Save a life, take a life? Save a
life, take a life?..." and slid his twenty bucks in and out of the
slot accordingly.

It was horrible. It was
terrible. But the way he did it was so
funny that Wendy had to hold onto the counter to stop
herself from falling over, she was laughing so hard. Eventually an
irritable cashier would snap at him, and Cartman would give him an
offended look, fold the money back up, and march away, saying that if
they were going to be like that,
he would take his business elsewhere. He would then add, "Who wants
to help that
kid, anyway? He's only got one arm. What good is that? He can't
work in a sweatshop and make my shoes if he only has one
arm."

And there were benefits to
having Cartman as a best friend, too. Having Cartman as an ally was a
much sweeter deal than having Cartman as an enemy, after all. It
meant he was on your side. It meant you were always guaranteed a seat
in the getaway car.

Now, if anyone had told
Wendy in fourth grade - or, hell, if they'd even told Wendy in
sixth grade - that, come the summer before eleventh grade, she would
develop a monstrous, all-consuming crush on her best friend, she
would have put them in a coma. But it was true. Wendy had it bad
for Cartman, and therein lay the problem. Because Cartman didn't
see her as date material. He just saw her as a friend. His only
friend, but still.

Wendy had resigned herself
to suffering in silence, until it came time to plan the
back-to-school dance, and Cartman dropped the biggest bomb of all: he
had a date.

--

Kyle liked slutty girls.

It was, apparently, his
'type.' His first real girlfriend had been none other than
Rebecca Cutswald, back in freshman year. They'd taken to making out
rather nastily against his locker, which was a bother, because Stan
was sharing one with him. Their hair, mixed together, was the
fizziest mess he'd ever seen in his life. It was like Cousin Itt
had been horribly betrayed by his conditioner. Stan feared reaching
his hand into all that to put his books away, so he carried them all
in his backpack, straining his back.

Kyle had laughed and
prodded him and said, "You know what they say about back
problems..." Stan had not found this amusing.

Luckily, Rebecca didn't
last long. Kyle ultimately decided climbing trees to escape getting
his ass kicked by Mark just wasn't worth it and broke up with her.
She didn't seem too fazed by this, and the next morning she was
pressed up against some other boy's locker.

Good riddance, Kyle said.

Kyle's next girlfriend
was Bebe Stevens. They rather enthusiastically groped each other
during lunch, then ate everyone else's food, because they'd all
lost their appetites. It lasted even shorter than his relationship
with Rebecca had, however, because Cartman ate lunch with Kyle, Stan,
and Kenny, and Wendy ate lunch with Cartman, and the two girls didn't
quite know what to say to each other.

Kyle's current
girlfriend was Porschea, the ex-Raisin's girl. She was the dimmest
so far, and never sat in a chair if Kyle's lap was available. She
wore a hat just like Stan's, except hers was black, and didn't
have a poofball, and... she'd continue on speaking like that
forever if no one ever shut her up. Kyle always shut her up, however,
in a manner that was both a relief to the ears and stomach-turning to
watch.

Stan had a serious problem
with Kyle's choice in women. After putting up with not using his
locker and never eating lunch for years, he finally snapped one day
and got into an argument with Kyle about it.

"God, do you really want
a girlfriend you can't even have a discussion with?"

"Hey, that's not
fair," Kyle said defensively. "Bebe's smart, she could have
carried on a conversation if she wanted to. She just didn't want
to."

"Doesn't it bother
you that the entirety of your relationship is sex?" Stan demanded.

"Oh, come on, man. Look,
all that soul mate shit you're supposed to feel with chicks, I've
already got that with you. The only void I need filled is the one my
libido is creating."

Stan stared at him for a
while, running completely out of steam. Then he finally said, "God,
could you make that sound any gayer?"

"Who knows?" Kyle
said. He seemed to take this as a personal challenge, because he
slipped his arm around his back and tugged him into a one-armed hug,
bumped hips, and said, "Aw, you know I love you best. But if you
want my undivided attention, you're going to have to start putting
out."

"Knock it off," Stan
grumbled, and brushed him off.

Stan had to admit that he
found Kyle's occasional, joking flirtations to be utterly
confusing. Because Stan was gay, and Kyle knew this. Very, very gay.
So gay his father and uncle took him on monthly hunting trips to try
and wring some heterosexuality out of him. The only thing they
exceeded in doing was giving him night terrors about killing bunnies,
which made his boyfriend laugh at him for being a 'beetch.'

Christophe was a short,
scruffy, angry, chain-smoking frenchman who occasionally broke into
rabid spiels against God or the government, complete with frothing at
the mouth. He was more commonly referred to as 'the Mole.'

Kyle didn't care for
him.

"Gentlemen," Kenny
said one Friday, sitting down at their lunch table. "And ladies,"
he added on second thought, nodding toward Wendy and Porschea. "I
have a dilemma. I'm afraid there's something very wrong with me."

"I've been saying that
for years," Cartman commented.

Kenny sighed tragically
and illustrated his point with his hands. "I know that deep down
I'm gay, but I just can't seem to stop having sex with women."

Kyle broke away from
Porschea long enough to say, "Kenny, what the fuck?"

"Stan, where's that
faggy boyfriend of yours?" Kenny went on. Stan arched an eyebrow at
him.

"I don't know where
Mole is. Why?"

"I'm going to get him
to teach me how to be the best gay I can be."

"Kenny, seriously. What
the fuck?" Kyle asked.

"Hey!" Kenny said,
jamming a finger at him. "I can be queer if I want! Don't you try
to oppress me!" He went back to addressing Stan. "I've got art
class with him next. I'll ask him then."

And then he marched off
determinedly.

"I'm starting to worry
about Kenny's mental state," Kyle said.

"... Wendy, let's
leave before they infect us, too, and you try to jump down Porschea's
throat," Cartman said, standing.

"Hey, dude," Kyle said
enthusiastically, "my parents are going to be gone all weekend.
Come over so we can harass pizza delivery men."

"Sure," Stan said.
Kyle returned to his lip lock with Porschea while he looked on,
frowning. Kyle had just invited his very openly gay friend to stay in
an unsupervised house with him for two nights, and jammed his tongue
down his slutty girlfriend's throat with the next breath. If that
wasn't a mixed message, Stan didn't know what was.

--

Kenny walked determinedly
up to Mole's desk. The Mole looked up, inclined an eyebrow, and
then said, "Yes, Kenny?"

"I wanted to ask a
favor, Mole," he said.

"What?"

"I want you to teach me
to be gay."

The Mole stared at him.
"Excuse me?"

"C'mon, you're the
gayest guy I know, and I need help."

"That's for sure,"
the Mole said. He blew out some smoke and said, "Non."

"What! Why not?"

"There's notheeng in
eet for me. I don't do anytheeng for free."

Kenny scowled and placed
his hands on his hips. "This is social class discrimination! Poor
people can be gay too!"

The Mole rolled his eyes,
which made Kenny scowl harder.

"And you have the fakest
French accent I have ever heard. As if real French people talk 'like
thees,'"
he said, mimicking him. The Mole narrowed his eyes a little, and then
the art teacher barked at them all to take their seats and start
creating, God damn it, and how many times to I have to tell you to
not smoke in my classroom, Mole?

Kenny resumed working on
his current project, which was a detailed bird's-eye-view map of
the mountains surrounding South Park. He'd gotten a good look at
it, once, when a bird swooped down and carried him off. Instead of
fighting the inevitable, Kenny relaxed and enjoyed the view until the
bird lost its grip on him and he plummeted to the earth and exploded
like a water balloon when he hit the ground.

He was eventually aware of
someone's presence, hovering over his right shoulder. Kenny turned
around and frowned at the Mole, who was staring very intently at the
map he was drawing. "What?"

"That's a map of ze
mountains."

"Yeah..." Kenny said,
quirking an eyebrow.

"Eet must be identical,"
he went on, sounding amazed. "When did you see ze mountains?"

The Mole slid the map
right out from under his arm and held it up, four inches from his
nose, examining it with one eye closed. "... have you ever gone on
reconnaissance beefore?"

"Sure," Kenny said.
"Back when old people took over the town."

"I weell pretend that
makes sense," the Mole said, handing him the map back. "I have to
eenfiltrate a base this weekend. Eef you come along and draw the map,
I weell geeve you 'gay lessons,' Kenny."

"All right!" Kenny
said, punching the air. "Victory is mine!"

"Of course," the Mole
added almost thoughtfully, "eet weell bee very dangerous, and you
weell most likely die in the attempt."

"Not a problem," Kenny
said enthusiastically, and the Mole gave him a confused look.

"What?"

"Oh, right - you've
never seen it happen. I forgot."

"What?"

"Never mind," Kenny
said, as the art teacher tackled the Mole and tried to wrestle the
cigarette from his mouth.

--

"Okay, we can use the
cheap streamers but take money for the expensive ones," Cartman
said. "And, oh, we should tell people they have to wear jackets,
and then have them hang the jackets up. And then if they want to get
their jackets back, they have to pay the hanging fine, and we can
pocket the money! God, I am the picture of brilliance."

"You are horrible,
Eric," Wendy said, and snickered.

"Hey, I'll use the
money to buy you something nice," Cartman promised. "After I get
everything I want, of course. If there's any money left."

Wendy giggled and quickly
stifled it. She didn't want to sound like a stupid girl with a
crush around Cartman, even if that's what she was.

When Wendy first proposed
they join the student council back in freshman year, Cartman had
claimed it was the 'gayest thing ever' and refused. But then he'd
found out just how much power the student council held over the
student body, and he'd jumped at the chance to exploit it.

Now they were the ones in
charge of organizing the back-to-school dance. Wendy decided to take
the opportunity to take a subtle, on-the-surface-platonic stab at
him.

"So, ah," she said
smoothly, "dancing makes me wish I were in a wheelchair, but I
suppose we'll have to go to this thing together to make sure you
get your dirty money."

"Actually," Cartman
said, "I'm going to the dance with Heidi. Looks like you're
going to have to hold the coats ransom yourself."

Wendy froze and stared at
him. "Heidi?"

"Yeah?"

"You're going with
Heidi?"

"Yeah, so what?"

"You can't go with
Heidi!"

Cartman gave her a
quizzical look. "Why not?"

"Because... because...
she has epileptic seizures!"

"Really? Cool,"
Cartman said. Wendy flinched. That
had backfired.

"She was born a man!"

"Oh, she was not."

"She doesn't shave her
legs! Ever! You should see her in the locker room!"

"I'd like
to," Cartman said genuinely, a look on his face that said quite
plainly it wasn't her hair he was thinking of. Wendy snarled.

"Wendy, quit foaming at
the mouth," Cartman said, making a face at her. "You're getting
it on my shirt. Serioushlay, I can't help it if the girls are after
my hot body. If you're pissed because you don't have a date, just
grab Kenny and say, 'EY, you poor piece of crap! You're taking me
to the dance!' He's not nearly gay enough to turn you down."

Wendy crossed her arms and
fumed. "I'm not
pissed."

"All right," Cartman
said, and proceeded to ignore her. "Let's find out how much a DJ
costs, take that amount from the class treasury, and then call up
Skyler and have him do it for half the price."

--

TBC

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